The man who brought Scotland's beavers back: 10 books to read next

The Herald Scotland

26-05-2025

Parallel lines
Edward St Aubyn
Jonathan Cape, £20
From the author of the acclaimed Patrick Melrose novels, a novel about dysfunctional families and the reverberations of fateful decisions. It opens in a psychiatric hospital where Sebastian is recovering from a break-down. His therapist also has problems, including the behaviour of his adopted daughter Olivia, who turns out to be Sebastian's sister. A poignant, unsettling exploration of unexpected consequences and connections.
Benedict Cumberbatch as Patrick Melrose, in the TV adaptation of the series of novels written by Edward St. Aubyn (Image: Showtime/Sky) Ingrained
Callum Robinson
Penguin, £10.99
A one-off memoir, with a unique charm, now available in paperback. As a boy, Robinson learned how to work with wood from his father, but it was not until he was a young man that his extraordinary talent emerged. Not that this made for an easy life. Revealing the personal struggle behind his professional success – and the perpetual dread of failure – Ingrained is a hymn to wood, to craftsmanship, and to the joy of making things that people and their descendants will cherish.
The Propagandist
Cécile Desprairies, trans Natasha Lehrer
Swift, £14.99
A disturbing autobiographical novel from a respected French historian. The story of a child whose family's war-time collaboration turns the house into a nest of lies and unspoken fears, it is a truly shocking portrait of eager - in some cases fanatical – collaboration. The narrator's mother, the propagandist of the title, was so skilfully manipulative, she was nicknamed the Leni Riefenstahl of the poster. Despriaries' unflinching account makes uncomfortable reading especially, one suspects, for a nation that has still fully to address the whitewashing of many who were ideologically aligned with their Nazi occupiers.
Germans parade on the Champs-Elyses in Paris, during the Occupation. (Photo by Albert Harlingue/) (Image:) Is a River Alive?
Robert Macfarlane
Hamish Hamilton, £25
This lyrical and mystical exploration of the river suggests that rivers are alive in the same sense as we are - an idea that raises serious legal and political questions. This provocative book, Macfarlane writes, has been 'co-authored' by the rivers he discusses, rivers he calls 'who' not 'which'. Showcasing endangered examples on different continents – Ecuador, south-eastern India and Canada - Is a River Alive? is an urgent call to raise awareness of the dangers facing the world's rivers, and an attempt to encourage us to view them as sentient entities worthy of care and protection.
The Book of Records
Madeleine Thien
Granta, £20
Canadian-born novelist Madeleine Thien admits that her latest book is 'a strange work'. It is also beautifully written. It opens with a Chinese father and his young daughter, Lina, finding themselves in a place known as The Sea. A ramshackle assortment of buildings, The Sea is where migrants and the displaced pause before continuing on their way. There is a peculiar feeling about this community, because it is made up of different times, with a 17th-century Dutch academic and a 1930s German philosopher living as neighbours. Lina's father knows he does not have long to live, and tries to prepare his daughter for her future. A beguiling novel about how to live a good life, and the role of history in our everyday.
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Mona Acts Out
Mischa Berlinski
Summit Books, £16.99
A witty but insightful day-in-the-life story of an actor in crisis. Mona is having trouble with her doctor husband, and her irksome in-laws have colonised their Manhattan apartment. In a few weeks she'll be giving the performance of her life as Shakespeare's Cleopatra, a terrifying prospect for a woman of such fragile self-confidence. On impulse, she heads out, ostensibly for shopping, to visit her old acting mentor. Mona Acts Out describes that brief but transformative escape. An engaging, bittersweet novel.
Foreign Fruit, A Personal History of the Orange
Katie Goh,
Canongate, £16.99
By tracing the history of the orange, which first was grown in China, Katie Goh also explores her own origins. Raised in Northern Ireland, and now living in Edinburgh, her family roots lie in China and Malaysia. Her search to understand her identity moves in tandem with this intriguing account of the orange and its cultural and economic significance down the millennia. An emotionally honest memoir that embraces colonialism, migration and capitalism and much else.
Albion by Anna Hope (Image: free) Albion
Anna Hope
Fig Tree, £16.99
On the death of Philip, the patriarch of the Brookes family, the ancestral 18th-century pile will be passed on to his heirs. After half a century of miserable married life, Philip's widow can't wait to leave, but for their children prospect of inhering the house and its enormous estate is tantalising. One is keen to rewild, another hopes it will become the crucible for a new ruling class, while for a third it represents a chance to reunite with a childhood love. A sensitively-written family saga that encapsulates the state of society today.
The Search for Othella Savage
Foday Mannah
Quercus, 16.99
Foday Mannah's debut novel is a crime story, based on a real case, in which women from the Sierra Leone community in Edinburgh go missing or are found murdered. When Othella Savage, the best friend of politics student Hawa, disappears, Hawa suspects the Lion Mountain Church they attend in Leith holds the answer. From the start, its pastor has made her uneasy. Set between Scotland and Sierra Leone, and recounted in a breezy style, despite its dark and dramatic plot, The Search for Othella Savage illuminates a different Edinburgh from that usually found in the city's detective fiction.